The first thing I ever said I wanted to be when I grew up was an artist. After that,
I wanted to make toys. After that, I wanted to be onstage. Hot dang! I got it all.
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Origins of a Dumpster Diver I grew up watching my Grandma Rose salvage buttons and hook fasteners from her worn out frocks (yes, she was a woman who wore frocks) before she cut them up for quilt scraps. Granddad’s worn out suit pants and woolen work shirts were similarly “harvested” before she cut them into strips for hooked and braided rugs. Grandma collected string and rubber bands and screws from burnt out toasters. She collected bacon drippings to grease her bread pans, rain water to rinse her hair, and egg shells to feed the four o’clocks outside her kitchen door.I doubt if Grandma ever entertained the notion of “creative outlets.” She was too busy keeping a family fed and healthy in Oklahoma during the Great Depression, when necessity dictated that you made over, made do, or did without. Frugality was a habit she hung onto even when post-war prosperity brought Granddad a steady job and her son a college education on the GI Bill. When I came along in the 1950s, Grandma still saved string, salvaged zippers, collected buttons, and cut wool into rug strips. I don’t usually think about why I make the things I make, why I find so much pleasure working with found materials. But when I do think about it, to explain my work or my self as a craftsperson, Grandma Rose always swims into focus, and I see her smile of satisfaction over creating something both functional and beautiful from scraps and trash. Origami is one of the cleanest, simplest, cheapest, most egalitarian artistic expressions I can think of. No equipment is needed. Supplies can be found in abundance in most waste baskets. Origami is smart, quiet, elegant, and it obeys all the rules we learned in geometry. Grandma Rose would have totally approved of origami. I could get philosophical about my “encrustaceans” –
the bottle-cap studded toilet seat lids in particular: an addicted culture
flushes away its liquid assets… I also write. The advice to “write what you know” is a call to salvage your history and turn it into something that makes sense, something functional and beautiful if you can. Then there’s storytelling, which goes beyond salvage. Storytelling is pulling art from thin air – pulling collaborative art from thin air, because storytelling is just talking to yourself unless you’re collaborating with listeners whose imaginations are engaged. I try to make, write, and perform simple, durable pieces. I want people to be able to remember the stories I tell and pass them on. I want people to pick up the things I make and “look” with their hands. You can see more from Megan Hicks at her personal website: 916 Liberty
Street - Fredericksburg, Va. 22401 |
